HOMESTEAD, Fla. — With his spotter telling him to play it safe, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. just wouldn’t listen.

Stenhouse, headed to the Sprint Cup Series next year and already with a Nationwide Series title on his resume, diced his way to a sixth-place finish Saturday in the Ford EcoBoost 300 to earn back-to-back Nationwide championships.

For some reason, the 25-year-old Stenhouse didn’t want to cruise to the title. All he needed was a 16th-place finish, but his sixth-place run gave him a 23-point advantage over Elliott Sadler and a 24-point edge on Austin Dillon.

Stenhouse felt the need to fight Sadler and Dillon for position over the final 10 laps as well as race side-by-side with Brian Scott, a driver with seven races he has failed to finish this year.

“I like racing hard like that,” Stenhouse said. “That’s what I do. That’s what I enjoy, and that’s why I love racing. That’s just how I drive.”

It was over the final 10 laps that Stenhouse held down his radio button so he couldn’t listen to his spotter, Mike Calinoff, who was warning him to back off.

“There was some anxious moments for our spotter,” Stenhouse said. “He wanted me to let them go and I wanted 20 top-fives. We wanted to win the race — that’s what we come to do each and every week and got us in the position that we were in.”

Second in the series with six wins this year, Stenhouse didn’t get to 20 top-fives — he posted 19 top-fives and 26 top-10s over the 33-race schedule.

“Mike Calinoff was trying to do what was best for Ricky and best for the team,” team owner Jack Roush said. “He was getting on Ricky’s nerves a little bit. He was getting on my nerves as well. … My concern was that (Stenhouse) would fool around and hit the wall while trying to hold the (radio) button.”

The will that powered Stenhouse to those finishes also powered him to make those daring moves late in the race.

“That is just the racer in Ricky,” crew chief Mike Kelley said. “He wants to win every race we are in and you can’t ask more than that.”

Stenhouse needed that attitude as he had to rally to win the championship. Sadler led the standings after 26 of the 33 races this year, including by six points with three races remaining.

But Sadler finished 11th at Texas two weeks ago and then spun out late while trying to make a move at Phoenix and finished 22nd as Stenhouse took control of the title hunt.

Stenhouse will race primarily in Sprint Cup next year as he will replace Matt Kenseth in Roush’s No. 17 car.

What would it have been like to move to Cup if he had wrecked in those waning laps?

“I don’t think about that,” Stenhouse said.

That’s probably true. He had some wrecks in the middle of the season that cost him several points.

“I go out and drive 100 percent every lap,” Stenhouse said. “I ran the bottom when I needed to, I ran the very top when I needed to and I ran the middle. I like to go out and have fun, I like to drive hard.”